Being bellowed at by ex-army instructors is not many people’s idea of fun, but
bringing soldiers into schools has shown impressive benefits, particularly
on academic standards.
Former troops stand at the school gate to encourage stragglers to hurry, run
whole-school exercise sessions before lessons begin, and host “VIP” tables
in the canteen at lunchtime as a reward. The idea of bringing ex-military
personnel into schools soared in popularity in 2012 when Michael Gove, then
the education secretary, gave £2 million to such schemes. He said that every
child could benefit

British schoolchildren are rude, disruptive and demotivated by the welfare state, according to a group of Chinese teachers who spent a month at a comprehensive school as part of a BBC documentary.
Five teachers are appearing in BBC Two’s Are Our Kids Tough Enough? Chinese School, taught at Bohunt School in Liphook, Hampshire, as part of the documentary that begins tomorrow.
The programme was designed to test how 50 British pupils in year nine, aged 13-14, would cope with the strict teaching methods used in China. The pupils were tested after four weeks against pupils who had remained with

One of Britain’s biggest accountancy firms will no longer consider an applicant’s qualifications, school or university when selecting trainees for interview, in an attempt to increase the diversity of its workforce.
Students will no longer need a minimum of three Bs at A level and a 2:1 degree to work at Ernst & Young, known as EY, because the firm wants to create “a level playing field”. Instead, it will use online tests to assess the potential of applicants.
Maggie Stilwell, from EY, said: “We are modernising the workplace, challenging traditional thinking and ways of doing things. Tra

Many parents have fond memories of their children hanging on to every word of
a bedtime story. They also remember the time when their youngsters began to
read independently and devour fairytales or adventure stories. It comes as a
disappointment, therefore, when children’s enthusiasm for reading drops off
sharply during adolescence. It is worrying too. Children who read for
pleasure do better at school than peers who rarely read, and they make more
progress in learning vocabulary, spelling and even maths. According to a
2013 study by the University College London’s Instit